


sleep is the cousin of death

by Nekositting



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Body Horror, Character Death, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Disturbing Themes, Erotic Horror, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gore, Mind Manipulation, Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV Third Person Limited, Psychological Horror, Rape/Non-con Elements, Science Fiction, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Nekositting
Summary: “Yourscent—“The creature sniffed the air, its eyes closing for a brief moment before its gaze flickered to hers. Hermione could only cringe.Its eyes were hungry, no,famished.“—is absolutely delightful.”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger/Voldemort
Comments: 29
Kudos: 130
Collections: Apocalyptic Tomione Monster Fest 2020





	sleep is the cousin of death

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Apocalyptic_Tomione_Monster_Fest_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Apocalyptic_Tomione_Monster_Fest_2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Alien
> 
> You're in for a ride. Heed the tags. Yes, seriously. It's some dark stuff. It's going to be rough.
> 
> Thank you Haus and Blue for betaing!

Hermione tried not to breathe, her palms wedged against her lips to stop any sort of exhalation from escaping.

She couldn’t afford to get caught. Not now.

She needed to find documents. Something. She couldn’t just leave empty handed, much less get caught  _ red-handed _ in the last place she should be.

Any explanations she could drum up for being found in a former military lab in the outskirts of town would fall on deaf ears.

Leaning back into the desk, Hermione shut her eyes to calm her racing heart, to quell the anxious voice in the back of her mind urging her to run, to leave, as quickly as she could. She was certain she’d heard something from down the hall, just outside the door.

A something that was unmistakable in its obviousness.

_ Footsteps. _

It couldn’t be anything else.

_ Calm down, Granger. They didn’t see you, they didn’t hear— _

Hermione forced herself to focus on the stillness in the room, on the silence that rang in her ears like the piercing screech of a megaphone. It did nothing to quell the rapid race of her heart or the burn of adrenaline coursing through her veins.

There were no windows in this room. There were no windows anywhere in this godforsaken place. If whoever was out there caught her, it would be all over. There’d be nowhere to run.

It was all concrete.

Not ideal, but the situation could be so much worse. She could have come to an empty military hospital for nothing, could have wasted all this time breaking the law, only to discover that this was not the base for sinister operations as she’d been suspecting for months.

The presence of others, as terrifying as it was, meant she was  _ right. _

There  _ was _ something more to this place, more than the public was being led to believe. 

They’d said it was abandoned, with the buildings’ exits blocked off and sealed to the masses. The place had certainly looked the part with its peeling paint and rusted locks, but underneath all that rot and mildew was something more. 

The disappearances, the strange luminescence of the water, the illness spreading through the town: it all went back to this base. 

Hermione didn’t know how long she hid beneath the ratty aluminium desk she’d crawled under, but it was long enough for her to loosen her death grip on her mouth and sag against the desk.

Slowly, she crawled out from beneath the rusted desk, grimacing at the spiders and insects scurrying on the ground. No one could claim that Hermione wasn’t dedicated. Between nearly getting caught by whomever was lurking in the dark and the bugs, she had her job cut out for her.

What other choice did she have, really? All she had were bare accusations without proof. The papers wouldn’t take her at her word—the most reputable ones, at least. The tabloids might consider her, and that was still debatable.

But for that, she had to find evidence. 

Anything at all to lay some foundation to her suspicions of the illegal going-ons in the place. Nothing screamed government misconduct louder than evidence sanctioning human experimentation, than polluting cities and killing all off its inhabitants due to the actions of some war-mongering general.

Hermione wiped herself down as best as she could, dissatisfied that smears of grey still ran along her trousers, but left it well enough alone. 

She evaded the broken glass on the floor and the overturned chairs, stopping only when she reached the door. Her heart didn’t want to crawl straight out of her throat anymore, but it was still loud in her ears, even in the stillness, even when logically whomever was walking about had long gone—

Not even the validation of her suspicions could settle the nervous twisting in her stomach. 

With one final glance at the dark and dilapidated room, Hermione opened the door. 

There was nothing but an empty hallway, as grey and desolate as the room she’d hidden in.

Hermione peeked her head out, casting a nervous glance down from where she’d come and then in the direction she intended to take.

More shadows and slivers of moonlight. There was no sign that anyone had been there at all.

_ Okay. _

She took a deep breath and left the room—

But not before a sound, one that made all the hairs on her arms stand on end, shattered the silence. 

“I see you.”

She ran.

Her legs were moving before she could register what the voice had even said, before she could even digest the fact that it had come from directly behind her. 

From the conference room she’d been holed in the entire time. 

_ How? _

Her mind was screaming for her to run, that familiar voice in the back of her head going from a restless murmur to a piercing scream. 

_ Run. _

_ Run.  _

She couldn’t hear herself through the screaming, couldn’t focus hard enough to think about the fact that no one else had been in that room. It had only been her.

Even with the shadows, with the dismal lighting, it was impossible that she could have missed someone being in there with her.

_ And yet, the voice was unmistakable.  _

Hermione pushed her legs harder, faster than she’d ever had before. She had to move, to get away, to—

She cried out when something wrenched her head back, a burning sensation bringing tears to the corners of her ears. Something had grabbed her hair, and was pulling with enough force to rip the hair straight from her scalp. 

Hermione skidded backwards, nearly toppling back into the hard ground, but she didn’t. She dug her heels onto the floor, windmilling her hands out to maintain her balance even as the figure’s grip tightened on her head and yanked her further back.

_ No. I’ve got to move. _

She had to keep moving, to keep going. That voice was screaming for her to move, the adrenaline coursing through her veins pushing her to go. She struggled to remain standing, to stop herself from landing on her back and falling into the mercies of whatever had her. 

“A lone human female.”

_ A what— _

Hermione didn’t have time to think about what it said before its grip tightened, tearing another few hairs out in the process, and dropped her against the ground. Hard.

“What a fascinating surprise.”

Her elbows scraped against the concrete as she landed, the back of her head narrowly missing the floor by what could only be a couple centimetres. 

_ Fuck. _

_ “ _ It’s been some time since I’ve had your kind enter my domain…”

“Let go!” Hermione shouted, only to scream when something slick took hold of her chin and forced her to crane her neck to look up. 

Hermione stopped breathing altogether. 

_ Oh  _ god.

It was—

Hermione tried not to gag.

It was supposed to be a face, but it was wrong. So wrong. It looked more like a mask than a real face, like someone had ripped off the person’s face and tried to wear it like a mask. It’s mouth was too wide, it’s teeth too sharp. Jagged and serrated, more shark mouth than any human one.

And its  _ eyes _ —

Hermione wanted to look away, but the firm hold on her chin wouldn’t let her; and her  _ terror _ , it kept her glued to the dirty floor. It was as if her limbs had frozen into ice slabs. 

The eyes were the most similar in kind to a person’s except the sclera was pitch black, the irises a blood red that almost glowed in the darkness. The pupils were mere slits, no thicker than a toothpick.

_ “ _ Your  _ scent _ —“

The creature sniffed the air, its eyes closing for a brief moment before its gaze flickered to hers. Hermione could only cringe.

Its eyes were hungry, no,  _ famished. _

“—is absolutely delightful.”

The voice in the back of her head was urging her to move, to scream, to do something. Still, she was frozen, was caught between horror and fascination and—

_ Move. _

The voice was shrieking, her heart racing so fast she could feel her own pulse at the base of her throat. 

_ Move. Please, move. _

The creature curled its fingers on her chin, something sharp biting into the skin. 

The touch was like a jolt of adrenaline, of awareness. 

Hermione kicked out, landing a hit at the centre of the creature’s body, and rolled to her feet. She didn’t bother looking back, not when the monster let out what could only be an enraged shriek. 

Her ears were ringing with the sound, her stomach devouring itself with terror, but still, Hermione didn’t stop. Not again.

She had frozen before, had nearly let the fear overcome whatever bit of rationality she possessed. That had nearly cost her her life. Never again. Never.

_ It’d wanted to eat— _

Hermione shook her head, refusing to finish the thought. 

_ Move. You’ve just got to move. _

She didn’t stop running even when her muscles began to scream at her to stop, her lungs about to burst with her need to draw more and more air. It was more exercise than she’d gotten in her entire life, and still, she forced herself to keep going.

Bursting through random doorways, turning through never-before-seen hallways: she made so many turns she no longer recognised where she was, but she had no choice.

Somewhere, lurking in the shadows, was something that shouldn’t even  _ be _ .

Her chin was still wet where it’d touched her, the scratch of its claws still resonating through her like a gunshot in a chapel. 

She wanted to vomit, even now, wanted to stop for a single moment and let out everything that’s been writhing in her belly from the moment she’d seen it, but that would be stupid. Beyond moronic.

She needed an exit. She could throw up after she made it out of this base alive.

_ If you even make it out at all _ , a terrible voice murmured in the back of her head, in the same hissing voice as the monster she’d seen. 

“You can’t hide from me, girl.”

The voice had come from somewhere behind her, high and lilting. Sibilant. 

Hermione nearly tripped on her two feet at the sound, her eyes now so wide that they burned. 

_ How? How did— _

“Your heart betrays you.”

Hermione screamed when the monster was suddenly in front of her, its claws catching her around the waist at the same time as the other latched onto her hair and yanked her head back. Desperate, Hermione started kicking and punching, her throat too tight with fear to even scream.

She had to get away.

She—

Its face inched closer to hers, its breath hot and humid against her cheek. The stench of something foul and rotten was strong enough to choke her, to make her gag, but still, she didn’t stop clawing at the hand on her waist, punching and kicking wherever her hands could reach.

But it was useless, it was obvious in the way the creature’s lips curled at its corners, at the rumble in its chest that mimicked something akin to human laughter, of malevolent  _ glee. _

“You cannot escape.  _ None  _ of you can.”

Its mouth nearly brushed hers, and it took all she possessed to turn away and not throw up. 

“They thought they could keep me here as nothing more than a shade, than a pet they could toss pitiful scraps to, but no, not I.“

The creature wrenched her head back to face it, and Hermione could only watch as its slick lips devoured what little space remained between their mouths. 

“I am a  _ king _ , and you are far beneath me.”

It kissed her.

Hermione squealed, slamming her mouth closed and squeezing her jaw so tight it ached, to prevent it from moving further, from creeping deeper. Its mouth was wet and gelatinous, its taste no different than the stench of rot, like milk that’d been left out overnight. 

If it noted her resistance, the creature didn’t show it. Instead, it forced its mouth further up against hers, its grip on her hair tightening to the point of pain. Still, she didn’t dare open her mouth. She refused, she wasn’t— 

It stabbed its claws into her back, cutting through her shirt and jeans, and Hermione’s mouth fell open into a scream from the agony. The monster was on her in seconds, its tongue sliding into her mouth before she could think to stop it, to sink her own teeth and rip its bloody tongue out. 

But then, its tongue began to jerk and writhe in her mouth, push and  _ push  _ deeper into her throat. Hermione fought against its hold, tears burning at the corners of her eyes when the tongue began to grow inside her throat, and she lost all ability to breathe.

_ No. No. No. _

Its eyes were intent on hers, only a breath away, and it was awful. It was watching her with a look of morbid curiosity and interest, with an expression both so human and foreign that it made her entire spine tremble and quake with terror. 

The tongue was endless, and she was swallowing it, throat spasming and clamping around a tongue that no longer felt like one anymore. It was something else, something hard and—

The monster pulled back, but the tongue was still inside her, still writhing and jerking. Hermione sucked in a lungful of air, but the wriggling,  _ oh god _ ; it was still moving.

In her throat, in her belly, somewhere at the centre of her, it was jerking.

She collapsed to the floor, and the monster followed her down to the floor, its grip on her head and waist cushioning what could have been a terrible fall. 

_ No. No. No.  _

She couldn’t focus past her struggling lungs, through the wiggling inside her, even as the creature’s grip eased on her, even when its claws caught the collar of her threadbare shirt and tore it down the middle. 

A spasm overcame her, like a knife had been stabbed over and over in her belly, and Hermione writhed, could only scream until her throat couldn’t anymore, her eyes rolling to the back of her head from the agony.

She pressed trembling hands to her stomach without meaning to, scratched at the skin over and over as the creature loomed above her, watched her, but still, she couldn’t stop the gashing, stop her nails from digging into her skin deep enough to reach into her intestines and yank out what was moving inside her, what was puncturing her stomach-lining—

Then, it all stopped. 

The pain, the twisting, the moving, it was like it’d never happened at all. 

She collapsed into the ground, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. She laid motionless there, shaking and chest heaving. It was as if she was someone else, as if the panic, the terror, the rush of adrenaline in her veins weren’t hers. 

Like the blood oozing from the cuts on her bare stomach, the red stained on her fingers weren’t  _ hers.  _

The creature made a strange purring around, but Hermione didn’t have the power to lift her head and look at it, see for herself what the monster was doing now. The concrete was cold, her body still quaking from the remnants of the writhing in her stomach.

_ Please _ .

“You’re the first.”

Hermione’s eyes fluttered shut, her eyes burning from crying, from screaming, from the phantom wriggling inside. She wanted to ask what it meant, to say something to the effect of “the first what, you monster?” but her voice was lost. 

Her body was as heavy as lead.

“To survive, that is.”

Hermione shook when a clawed finger curled over the rim of her jeans and yanked, its sole button coming undone. It was a quick, distressing sound, but Hermione’s limbs didn’t so much as twitch. It was weak,  _ she was weak _ , and now, those same-human like fingers were tugging her jeans down and off her useless legs. 

Tears began to fall anew.

It was—

It was going to violate her. 

She didn’t know how she knew, how she could read its intentions without looking at its face, without seeing a phallus of any kind between the monster’s legs, but she could read it in the way the monster's fingers shook.

A human reaction.

“We’re compatible, it would seem.”

Hermione let out a choked sob at the awe in its voice, at the way its claws smoothed down her legs and caused gooseflesh to breakout over her skin. 

It tugged her free of her jeans, leaving her with nothing but her undergarments. The creature paused above her, as if assessing its next movements, and then it was tearing off her underwear.

The rip of it was loud enough that it echoed in the silence of the room he’d caught her in—a place she didn’t have the stomach nor wherewithal to look at closely. It didn’t matter, in the end, where they were.

It’d caught her. 

The monster had her, and it had done something to her, put something inside her that was no longer moving, but she could still sense the wrongness of. 

_ Something alive and wrong, so very wrong.  _

“Look at me.”

Hermione didn’t want to, refused to. She was terrified, no,  _ horrified _ , of what it would do, of what she would see. She wanted to pretend this all away. To solve mathematical equations as it did what it came to do, as it—

_ Violated me. _

“No, that will not do.”

Its fingers were back on her chin, and she was powerless to stop it from lifting her head up, from lining up their faces. Its breath was on her face again; inhale and exhale, she knew each one. With each one she took, she inhaled the monster’s. 

The stench was no longer overwhelming, no longer suffocating and debilitating, but it was there. The tingling fester of it, the foulness and horridness, was still lodged in her nostrils.

“Look at me, girl.”

She didn’t know why she did it, why she opened her eyes and looked, but she did. There was something in the back of her mind hissing and crooning, murmuring. She didn’t recognise the voice, didn’t understand the compulsion thrumming in her veins, in the centre of her stomach.

“I want to see you to look at me as I change you.”

_ Change me? _

Before she could think to ask what it meant, the creature pushed forward again to kiss her. Its lips were moving, soft and gentle, against hers. It was nothing like its earlier kiss, than the forceful shove of its tongue into her throat and scrape of its nails into her back.

She wanted to push away, to seal her lips and never let it in again, but her mouth—

It opened instead. It was as if something else was controlling her, something was highjacking her movements, her desires. 

_ This isn’t right.  _

Its fingers curled into her hair as the other trailed along her nude body, settling over the thatch of hair between her legs. It was a curious and exploring touch, as if it had never done anything like this before, and perhaps, it hadn’t. 

She was the first to survive, it had said. 

She was the first to be deemed compatible, it had explained. 

A voice was screaming for her to move, one that was just like hers. It pleaded and shrieked, but her body, it was like it wasn’t her own. Something was wrong. 

Terror seized her lungs.

She was paralysed. The monster, whatever it had done to her, had  _ petrified her _ . And now, now it was going to—

Hermione could only watch as the creature’s fingers probed her, its fingers descending down to her labia and parting the lips. She twitched, but she could not move, could not jerk free. 

She was trapped in her own body, bound to her own flesh. 

_ No. _

Hermione cried as the monster felt around her privates, as the creature's red eyes assessed her responses to its touch. 

“You’re afraid.”

If Hermione had been capable of movement, she might have jumped. Its voice was less guttural and more human, became that way with each passing moment. Even its face, the red of its eyes, the crinkle of the human face it had stolen for its own, appearing more and more like it belonged to it. 

That couldn’t be right. It was a monster. It wasn’t human. She knew what she’d seen, the writhing inside her, the way it had chased her in the dark. It was a  _ monster. _

“But there is no longer a need for you to be afraid.”

Hermione was floored.

It was trying to  _ comfort _ her. Hermione could have laughed, could have wept. 

“You are nothing like the rest. Have you not sensed it yet?”

Hermione tried to shake her head in denial, to speak and tell it precisely how wrong it was. She was human, everything that the creature seemingly despised. 

The writhing began anew.

Hermione froze, her focus narrowing on the movement inside her, at the press of something like tiny teeth digging into her stomach lining and pushing lower and  _ lower.  _

The creature’s fingers moved up her inner labia, and Hermione started, a strange sound escaping her as a zing of something pleasant rocked through her. Its fingers had found her clitoris, had seized on the bud and began to tease along the skin until Hermione could no longer focus on the thing inside her.

“You are being remade, now as we speak.” 

Its fingers were relentless now, and Hermione cried out with each slide of those fingers, each squeeze and tug as it toyed with her nub. It was driving her mad, driving out any attention she could give to the pressure in her belly, to the creature watching her with intense focus.

“You’ll be  _ more. _ ”

The creature shifted, and its face was no longer hovering above hers. It was traveling down her body, watching her with rapt attention as it slid lower and lower, mouth tasting along her skin.

Hermione swallowed, breath catching in her throat as it kissed her stomach. It was a loving and worshipping kiss, and the thing inside her, whatever it was, responded. It was like a hundred butterfly wings were flitting inside her, joyous and thrilled that the monster was just centimetres away.

_ God.  _

The creature went lower still, leaving another soft kiss hip bone as it went, and then—

Hermione twitched, her mind shutting down for a single moment, when its mouth was suddenly devouring her cunt, unlike the soft kisses, the gentle touches of its fingers. 

Its teeth caught her clit, and she screamed, something warm oozing from between her legs at the onslaught. It was merciless, unforgiving as it slid his tongue against it, and sucked it into its horrifying mouth.

It had teeth that could slice through her like a hot knife through butter, it had a mouth with a tongue that could push and  _ push  _ until it became lost inside her. It shouldn’t be touching her.

_ Stop. _

Fear and something else, something she recognised consumed her, warmed her skin and softened her insides. The writhing in her belly became frenzied, worse than it had ever been before as if it were responding to the onslaught of sensation, to the pleasure devouring her. 

The creature sucked at her clit, and lights flashed at the corners of her eyes. Its fingers parted her, exposed her to its merciless mouth, and it was like she was going to fall, collapse back in on herself. 

The world was twisting, and then, its mouth fell lower still, but its fingers—

The fingers rubbed her faster, no more gentle than his mouth had been, and she couldn’t breathe without a scream or a moan forcing its way from her throat. 

Its tongue shoving its way inside, and Hermione’s eyes rolled to the back of her head as it forced its way inside, when it squirmed in a way that no human tongue or phallus ever could. It pushed along the walls, curious and violent. 

The creature was looking for something, something that it knew she possessed, and then, she was clamping down on its tongue, unable to control her shouting, more white flashing in the back of her eyes—

It was pushing into her g-spot, it was unstoppable. 

It was too much, how its fingers squeezed her clit to the point of pain, how its tongue writhed and moved within her, jabbing into her g-spot, and—

She came with a sharp cry, and the creature, the creature swallowed up all the fluids flooding out of her, as its tongue continued to burrow further inside, continued to—

The pain of its tongue jabbing into her cervix was enough to drag her back down from the bliss of orgasm, to yank her away from the haze of nothing, from the weightlessness.

“No!” It was enough to make her vocal chords string together a single word, but it was too late, too much.

As the monster was pulling away, its tongue was still pushing deeper, much further inside. It was the same thing it’d done to her mouth, but, something was wrong, something was off.

The pain was ebbing away, melting into something more pleasant. It was—

The creature sat up, and Hermione could only blink as it lifted her hips up higher, levelling its face with something else, with something she never would have expected.

Her arse. 

It was—

Hermione wanted nothing more than to squirm, than to fight because that wasn’t right, that was wrong. It wasn’t meant for  _ that _ , and it would do the same thing it had done inside her, it would—

Her womb clenched, and she collapsed back into her mind. That  _ thing _ was squirming inside her, but the pain of it, it was all but obliterated. There was no pain, only pleasure, only that dizzying pleasure. 

_ No. _

The creature was purring as its mouth found her arsehole, as its tongue forced its way inside and Hermione was crying with pleasure, with delight, with something akin to rapture.

_ More. _

It was maddening, the flurry of sensation in her womb, in her stomach. It was rending her apart, tearing her mind to pieces, to nothing.

Hermione hardly felt the tongue in her arsehole anymore, only the buzzing in the depths of her. 

_ More. _

She didn’t know what she wanted anymore, what was happening around her, through her. Her vision was going dark, from white to nothing, from nothing to white, and back. 

Dizziness overcame her, and pleasure swallowed her whole. 

The monster reared back, and her arse was full too, the appendage moving along her intestines now trying to meet the buzzing in her belly, to burn her from the inside with ecstasy. 

She blinked, and the world was no longer as it should be. It was all darkness, all pleasure, all nothing, and all everything. 

The creature was no longer there, but she could feel it, feel  _ him _ —she knew that it was a male now, somehow. It wasn’t an it, no it wasn’t just a thing. 

There was cognisance there. Humanity wedged between its monstrous shoulders and spine. 

It had been human once, a voice whispered in her head much like his. 

It had been a man.

A lonely man.

A man.

_ A man _ .

Hermione gasped, and the darkness dissipated into nothing. The creature was on her again, its hips slapping into hers as—

She threw her head back, unsure of when she’d become able to move. It was pushing into her, all of her. He was buried deep inside, and somehow, still pushing deeper into her, hitting that maddening spot inside her with each press of its bony hips. 

The creature’s face was still monstrous, but somehow, now, he had become more human than he had before, like his teeth had receded back into his mouth, his face had begun to fit better on his head. 

Hermione reached for his head, unsure of why or how she was doing it, but she did. There was a drumming in her head, pulsing fast in her ears, in her veins, in her skin. She could sense energy, power, feelings,  _ everything.  _

Everything was alive. More alive than it had been before she’d gone under. 

The world—

His face—

He buried deeper inside her, and Hermione moaned as she grabbed hold of his head and at the same time she began to impale herself on him, on everything—

_ More.  _

A voice unlike her own was crooning, was singing and lilting. 

_ More. _

He lifted his head, and it was like he didn’t recognise her anymore. He gazed, and gazed, and gazed, and Hermione could only smile. Her teeth felt wrong in her mouth, her skin was chafing, her body itching. 

_ Eat him _ .

She didn’t know where the voice had come from, why she was pulling back her lips and sinking her teeth into his neck. He didn’t look surprised when she did, didn’t push her away even when her mouth filled with blood and flesh. The taste of iron excited her.

She gorged herself on him, the writhing inside her desperate for more, for everything, anything it could have. 

_ Eat him _ .

She didn’t stop, couldn’t.

Not until her belly was full, not until— 

The monster stopped moving inside her, and Hermione roared, screamed and laughed until the buzzing in her ears ceased.

The monster was dead. 

_ The monster was dead. _

The words were an echo, a decadent croon. Hermione’s insides fluttered with excitement, with pleasure.

_ The monster was dead. _

Hermione rose from the ground, covered in dirt and grime, in blood and entrails. The base was empty, hollowed out, but the world—

The world was alive.

_ She  _ was alive.


End file.
